In that capacity one of his primary responsibilities was to co-ordinate the work of the Secretariat related to the development of Agenda 21, the principal programmatic outcome of the conference.
In February 1993 he appointed Nitin Desai at the under-secretary-general level to head the newly created Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development.
The substantive work of this department supported the various United Nations intergovernmental bodies, including the Economic and Social Council, and the Commission on Sustainable Development.
[1] In March 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Desai to co-ordinate, and subsequently head, the consolidated Department of Economic and Social Affairs which provided substantive support to the normative, analytical, statistical and relevant technical co-operation processes of the United Nations on the economic and social side.
A special feature of this Summit was the focus on the developmental and environmental aspects of water, energy, agriculture, health and bio-diversity.
The summit also led to practical partnerships between governments, international organisations, the private sector and non-governmental organizations to address these concerns.
[4] At the end of August 2003, Desai retired from the UN but continued his association with the UN as a special adviser to the secretary general for the World Summit on the Information Society.
Desai was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2003–04.
[7] Desai is associated with the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy and many academic organisations and non-governmental organizations dealing with economic, social and environmental issues as also security and foreign policy.